


The Veranda

by orphan_account



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Baberoe, Cancer, Death, M/M, Memories, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 01:29:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course it was Babe who got the most of Gene. On the rare occasions when the men who had been at Babe and Gene’s side throughout the war were in touch, called them for a visit, or came to visit them, Gene would retreat to the solemn, quiet man who gave small smiles and mumbled words of reply but the man who was never rude - just shy. It was when they left and Babe had him to himself again that French curse words flowed and mumbles became Cajun-accented fluency. It was Babe who heard Gene laugh, who saw him imperfect and sick, who inhaled his scent and watched his face in a moment of ecstasy. It was Babe who watched as Gene frowned over the morning newspaper and peered over his glasses instead of through them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Veranda

In mid-September, when there was a certain hush to the mornings in Louisiana and the evenings between six and eight were cast golden and amber as a huge late-summer sun took it’s time to set, Gene would sit on the white, wooden chair that cluttered up the decked veranda and listen to the sound of cooing birds and chirping hoppers until the light became too low and a cold, nightly wind began to settle in. 

For thirty seven years of his life, he had done this every evening that there was no rain with a lithe man two years his junior whose face was always bright, whose skin was pale and freckled and whose auburn hair could catch alight if his chair was angled in just the right position to allow the slowly dwindling sun to cast out a ray. 

Conversations would usually flow mostly from Babe’s mouth, a thick Philadelphia brawl that recounted phone calls he’d shared with Bill Guarnere or how his mother had been calling, wondering when they were going to visit Philly again; Gene’s input was often a slight smile or a silent nod, a whisper ‘um huh’ as he exhaled the smoke of his Lucky Strike. 

And, As the years drew on and the summers grew hotter, the conversations rarely changed. One night, in May before the warmer weather had truly set in, Gene had sat silently and brooding, a bottle of beer in hand, as Babe expressed a deep concern for his mother back in Philadelphia. 

‘She’s sick,’ He’d said with that Philly ack to his voice and Gene and given a sympathetic look. ‘I oughta visit her’. After a day or two, Babe had gone to Philadelphia without Gene and the week-long separation had caused Eugene Roe more of an ache in the pit of his stomach than the shrapnel in his thigh had ever done. 

When Babe had returned it had been solemnly, with the sad news that his mother had passed. Gene had met him at the train station and brought him back to the house in silence. Over the threshold and barely into the open plan set up of their home, Babe had sobbed and Gene had snaked his arms around the man’s slim waist to hold him close and tight. After a moment, his left hand had come up to cup the back of Babe’s head, and soft words and light kisses had left his lips. They had stayed like that an hour, the light outside them dwindling and the front door still wide open, Babe’s back to the world and not caring who knew he was hurting. 

There had been many nights on the veranda, of course, that had been filled with happiness. The calls that came through the years from both men’s siblings informing of births and marriages had always left them with smiles on their faces and with Gene possessing the ability to mutter more than a few words. 

Of course it was Babe who got the most of Gene. On the rare occasions when the men who had been at Babe and Gene’s side throughout the war were in touch, called them for a visit, or came to visit them, Gene would retreat to the solemn, quiet man who gave small smiles and mumbled words of reply but the man who was never rude - just shy. It was when they left and Babe had him to himself again that French curse words flowed and mumbles became Cajun-accented fluency. It was Babe who heard Gene laugh, who saw him imperfect and sick, who inhaled his scent and watched his face in a moment of ecstasy. It was Babe who watched as Gene frowned over the morning newspaper and peered over his glasses instead of through them. 

It was Babe who watched him age. 

They spent the last of their twenties, their thirties, forties and fifties together: they grew together, learned together, changed together. Babe softened around the edges, the city boy became tamer, while Gene loosened up and, if just a small amount, learned to give a little of what he was feeling, how his mind was running - he owed that to Babe, in the most sincere manner.

But it was Gene who watched Babe with true intensity - he heard the Philadelphia accent take a tweak, turning slightly with the softness of Louisiana; he watched his auburn hair lighten to a blond and then slowly begin to streak white, he watched Babe rub his stomach and frown but say nothing. He listened, at three am, as Babe vomited but refused to call to Gene for help. 

It was Gene who’d sat on the veranda, telephone stretched with him while Babe lay sick on their bed, and telephoned for the doctor. 

‘I seen this with my Pop’ Gene had said to the bearded, aged doctor when he’d arrived. ‘He got Cancer’. 

The doctor had taken Babe to the hospital and Gene wandered the halls of the house that seemed far too big for two days before he could actually see Heffron again. He went to the hospital and stood meekly at the foot of Babe’s bed, astonished by the view. In two days, Babe had been stripped and looked small and sicker than Gene could have imagined. A tube had taken up residence in Babe’s nose and bags of liquid and bodily waste hung at the sides of his bed. 

‘Cancer’ Babe had laughed and then gagged on the tubed that ran down his throat. ‘I survived the war, to get cancer’. He’d looked so desperately at Gene that all of the Cajun man’s senses had failed. 

‘They’ll treat it’ he’d promised but he knew that he shouldn’t. 

‘They can’t’ Babe had said with such intense knowledge and acceptance that Gene had thought Babe knew what the didn’t. 

He did, of course. Not even sixty years old and Babe had been snatched from Gene’s arms by a disease that had been silent for so long and then struck, hard and fast, taking Babe’s life within two months of diagnosis. 

The nights that immediately followed Babe’s death had been colder than Gene had ever experienced his entire life in Louisiana. Bastogne without the snow, but twice as cold. He had sat on the deck, cigarettes in hand, and considered that life was far too quiet without his Philly boy. No brawl of voice, no ‘why sure’, no laugh, no arms around his waist as he shaved at the sink in the morning, no touch of hair against his shoulder as he slept, no hands on his hips and no lips pressed to his. It had gone, too suddenly and abruptly, and he hadn’t been sure that he could survive more nights like those. 

It was nine years after Babe’s death, almost to the day, that Gene sat upon the decking alone, skin wrinkled and fingers holding tightly to a packet of Lucky Strikes and gave up. He had been sick himself for a while, his mind wasn’t what it used to be and he missed Babe on the days that clarity won out and he could remember his name. The summer was ending and the night was warm, hoppers croaked and birds flew across an amber sky like moving, black clouds of grace. He had had the bottle of pills for a while and it was on days of clarity, like this, that he reminded himself what it was for. 

Empty, now, he sat and waited. 

_"Babe....”_


End file.
